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Ube  mntversus  of  Gbtcaao 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE 
STUDY  OF  OBADIAH 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED     TO     THE     FACULTY     OF     THE     GRADUATE     DIVINITY     SCHOOL 
IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

(DEPARTMENT  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE  AND  INTERPRETATION) 


jf\ 

tin     CF 


BY 
GEORGE  A.  PECKHAM 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
1910 

.. 


Ube  mnfversus  of  Cbtcaao 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE 
STUDY  OF  OBADIAH 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED    TO     THE     FACULTY     OF    THE     GRADUATE     DIVINITY     SCHOOL 

IN    CANDIDACY    FOR    THE    DEGREE    OF 

DOCTOR    OF    PHILOSOPHY 

(DEPARTMENT  OF  OLD  TESTAMENT  LITERATURE  AND  INTERPRETATION) 


BY 
GEORGE  A.  PECKHAM 


CHICAGO 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
1910 


Copyright  1910  By 
The  University  of  Chicago 


Published  February  1910 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

The  University  of  Chicago  Press, 

Chicago,  Illinois,  U.  S.  A. 


TO 

MY  WIFE 


AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY  OF  OBADIAH 

Obadiah,  the  shortest  of  Old  Testament  books,  offers  for  solution  an 
unusual  number  of  difficult  problems.  There  has  been,  and  still  is,  great 
diversity  of  opinion  regarding  the  date  of  the  oracle  and  the  circumstances 
that  occasioned  it.  Is  the  prophecy  as  we  have  it  a  unit  ?  If  not,  how 
is  it  to  be  divided  ?  Are  vss.  1-7  a  record  of  history,  or  a  prediction,  or  a 
" prophetic  estimate"  of  events  that  were  just  taking  place  at  the  time 
when  the  message  was  delivered  ?  Difficulties  in  syntax,  lexicography,  and 
history  confront  the  student  in  almost  every  verse. 

At  the  beginning  of  our  study  we  are  met  by  the  striking  resemblance 
between  Obad.,  vss.  1-9  and  parts  of  Jer.  49 : 7-22.  Obad.,  vss.  1-4  and  5,  6 
have  so  much  in  common  with  Jeremiah  that  there  can  be  no  thought  of 
independent  origin  for  the  two  pieces.  Either  Jeremiah  borrowed  from 
Obadiah  or  Obadiah  from  Jeremiah,  or  both  must  be  indebted  to  an  older 
common  source,  or  both  have  been  annotated  and  increased  by  the  same 
hand.  From  a  careful  comparison  of  the  two  texts  it  appears  that  in 
Obadiah  the  arrangement  of  the  verses  is  the  logical  one  and  that  the 
prophecy  as  a  whole  is  here  in  its  more  original  form;  but  occasionally 
Jeremiah  offers  the  better  reading:  for  example,  the  superiority  of  Jer. 
49 : 9  over  Obad.,  vs.  5 ;  and  Jer.  49 : 1 56  over  Obad.,  vs.  26,  is  evident.  The 
present  form  of  vs.  2  of  Obadiah  is  due  to  textual  corruption  and  that  of  vs.  5 
to  interpolation.  But  it  is  unnecessary  to  enter  here  upon  an  extended 
discussion  of  the  relation  of  Obadiah  to  the  parallel  passage  of  Jeremiah, 
for  an  excellent  presentation  of  the  material  may  be  found  in  the  article 
on  "Obadiah"  by  J.  A.  Selbie,  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible.  See 
also  the  Introductions  of  Kuenen,  Driver,  and  Cornill. 

The  position  of  many  scholars,  stated  by  Kuenen  (Einleitung),  is  that 
both  have  followed  the  same  original,  of  which  Jeremiah  has  made  free  use, 
while  Obadiah  has  taken  it  over  with  very  slight  changes  (Ewald,  Wilde- 
boer,  Briggs,  Driver,  J.  A.  Selbie,  and  others).  Hitzig  in  supposing  that 
Jeremiah  served  as  a  model  for  Obadiah  has  had  few  followers.  Well- 
hausen,  Nowack,  and  Marti,  who,  with  Stade,  Smend,  and  Schwally, 
consider  the  piece  from  Jeremiah  to  be  a  very  late  production,  maintain 
that  its  author  borrowed  directly  from  our  book  which,  according  to  their 
theory,  has  suffered  corruptions  and  received  additions  after  his  use  of  it. 
The  arguments  offered  for  this  position  seem  valid. 

This  short  book  has  passed  through  its  full  share  of  changes,  which 


2  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH 

will  be  noticed  below.  For  the  possibilities  in  the  way  of  displacement, 
transposition,  interpolation,  glosses,  and  corruption  of  text  compare  the 
IK®  of  I  Kings,  chaps.  2-14,  with  the  text  of  the  LXX.  To  take  a  single 
example,  between  vss.  35  and  36  of  chap.  2  there  is  found  in  the  LXX  a 
section  which  corresponds  to  5:9,  10;  3:16;  5:29;  9:24,  25,  23,  17,  18  of 
the  4U®.  Every  student  of  Old  Testament  textual  criticism  knows  that 
many  other  passages  would  serve  equally  well  for  illustration. 

Before  the  appearance  of  Ewald's  commentary,  the  unity  of  the  book 
of  Obadiah  was  generally  accepted  without  question;  although  some  saw 
that  the  last  few  verses  had  little  to  do  with  the  rest  of  the  prophecy,  and 
gave  them  a  purely  messianic  interpretation.  Drusius,  in  his  commentary 
(1594),  says,  on  vs.  17,  "What  follows  refers  to  the  deliverance  of  the 
church  and  the  reign  of  Christ,"  and  Tarnovius  in  1624  gives  vss.  17-21  a 
spiritual  application  to  the  church  and  her  enemies;  but  Ewald  was  the 
first  to  suggest  that  a  prophet  living  in  the  exile  had  made  use  of  an  older 
oracle  as  the  foundation  of  his  own  message  of  comfort  to  his  people. 
According  to  Ewald,  more  than  half  of  the  present  piece,  vss.  i-io,  15-18, 
in  subject-matter,  language,  and  style,  points  to  one  or  more  older  prophets. 
Little  if  any  change  has  been  made  in  vss.  i-io.  It  is  not  certain,  how- 
ever, that  vss.  15-18  constituted  a  part  of  this  older  oracle  against  Edom: 
in  them  our  prophet  may  have  used  more  than  one  source.  Vss.  11-14 
and  19-21  are  his  own  composition,  dating  soon  after  the  capture  of  Jerusa- 
lem by  the  Chaldaeans.  The  historical  background  may  be  seen  in  a 
corrected  reading  of  II  Kings  16:6  and  in  Obad.,  vs.  7.  Rezin  has  con- 
quered the  territory  east  of  the  Jordan  down  to  Elath,  expelling  the  Jews 
and  restoring  the  city  to  the  Edomites.  The  latter,  however,  are  obliged 
to  tolerate  the  rule  of  their  Aramean  allies,  which  leads  to  bloody  quarrels 
between  them  and  their  friends  and  protectors,  so  that  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  Edomites  are  banished  from  the  country.  This  furnishes 
Obadiah,  a  contemporary  prophet  in  Jerusalem,  an  occasion  for  pro- 
nouncing Yahweh's  judgment  upon  the  pride  of  Edom  (History  of  Israel, 
English  transl.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  159  f.). 

Ewald's  treatment,  dividing  the  prophecy  into  an  older  and  a  younger 
portion,  was  a  distinct  advance,  pointing  the  way  to  the  solution  of  many 
difficulties  in  the  Book  of  Obadiah.  He  has  been  closely  followed  by 
Kuenen,  who  is  not  so  definite  in  the  date  of  the  older  piece,  and  who  has 
with  slight  variation  from  Ewald's  position  fixed  the  point  of  division  at  the 
end  of  vs.  9,  and  the  date  of  the  younger  prophet  some  time  after  the  return 
from  the  captivity  in  536.  In  substantial  agreement  with  him  are  Cornill, 
Wildeboer,  Driver,  Selbie  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  and  others. 


INTRODUCTION  TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  3 

Koenig  (Einleiiung)  differs  somewhat  from  Kuenen,  inasmuch  as  he  con- 
siders 1 6a,  1 8,  iqa,  2ob  parts  of  the  pre-exilic  piece. 

The  principal  reasons  offered  for  the  partition  are:  (i)  The  enemies 
of  Edom  in  vss.  1-9  are  the  nations  who  are  aroused  by  Yahweh  to  execute 
vengeance  upon  their  former  friend  and  ally,  whereas  according  to  vss. 
15  ff.,  the  judgment  proceeds  from  Yahweh,  and  Israel  is  the  instrument 
for  its  execution!  (2)  Vss.  1-9  represent  Edom's  chief  sin  as  his  pride  and 
defiance  of  Yahweh  himself  because  of  reliance  upon  his  stronghold,  while 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  book  the  punishment  is  visited  solely  because  of 
his  treacherous  conduct  against  his  brother  nation,  Judah.  (3)  The 
literary  style  of  the  two  parts  is  entirely  different.  The  first,  abounding  in 
striking  figures,  rich  in  thought,  and  concise  in  statement,  is  full  of  life 
and  action;  but  the  second,  in  marked  contrast,  is  lacking  in  ideas,  as  well 
as  vigor  of  expression. 

Wellhausen  made  a  valuable  contribution  to  the  solution  of  the  problem, 
when  he  established  the  main  division  in  vs.  15.  Vss.  6,  7^-9,  12,  he 
considers  as  secondary,  and  sees  the  occasion  for  the  remainder  of  vss. 
1-14,  156  in  the  driving  of  the  Edomites  out  of  their  home  by  the  Arabian 
tribes  of  the  south  some  time  after  the  first  half  of  the  fifth  century  B.  c. 
Vss.  150,  1 6-2 1  were  added  at  a  still  later  date  not  definitely  fixed.  Well- 
hausen's  position  has  been  accepted  by  the  commentators,  Nowack  and 
Marti,  also  by  Cheyne  in  the  Encyclopaedia  Biblica.  In  vss.  1-7  Well- 
hausen and  Nowack  see  not  prediction,  but  a  record  of  past  events;  while 
Marti  thinks  of  history  in  the  making,  "a  prophetic  estimate  of  Edom's 
conquest  being  enacted  in  the  present."  G.  A.  Smith  grants  Wellhausen's 
claim  that  the  seventh  verse  of  Obadiah  refers  to  the  expulsion  of  the 
Edomites  by  the  Arabs  in  the  sixth  or  fifth  century  B.  c.,  but  maintains  the 
pre-exilic  origin  of  vss.  1-6.  "Vss.  8-9  form  a  difficulty,"  because  they 
return  to  the  future  tense.  Smith  sees  no  difficulty  in  the  way  of  dating 
the  remainder  of  the  book  in  the  years  following  the  destruction  of  Jerusa- 
lem, and  thinks  it  not  improbable  that  the  prophet  was  an  eye-witness  of 
that  awful  time.  Among  those  who  have  followed  Ewald's  lead  in  divid- 
ing the  book  into  an  older  and  a  younger  portion,  but  who  have  proposed 
decidedly  unique  treatments,  may  be  mentioned  Winckler,  Altorientalische 
Forschungen,  zweite  Reihe,  Band  III  (1900),  pp.  425-57,  and  Sievers. 
Winckler  brings  the  older  piece,  which  consists  of  vss.  1-18,  with  the 
exception  of  the  last  clause  of  vss.  n,  13,  176,  into  connection  with  an 
unsuccessful  revolt  of  Jerusalem  under  Darius,  at  which  time  he  supposes 
that  Jerusalem  was  destroyed  by  the  Edomites,  Moabites,  and  Ammonites, 
under  orders  from  the  Persian  king  as  a  punishment  for  participation  in 


4  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH 

the  Ionic  uprising  about  500  B.  c.  But  this  destruction  of  Jerusalem  at 
the  hands  of  the  Edomites  is  purely  imaginary,  and,  as  Marti  says,  is  nothing 
but  mere  conjecture. 

Sievers  in  his  "Alttestamentliche  Miscellen,"  No.  7,  published  in 
Berichte  ueber  die  Verhandlungen  der  Koeniglich-Saechsischen  Gesellschaft 
der  Wissenschaften  zu  Leipzig:  Philologisch-historische  Klasse,  Band  XXIX 
(1907),  gives  the  Book  of  Obadiah  a  peculiar  and  original  treatment  based 
upon  his  theory  that  all  the  poetry  of  the  Old  Testament  is  written  in  the 
anapestic  meter.  He  divides  the  material  into  four  sections:  I:  fa,  4, 
$da,  2,  30,  6,  7;  II:  ibca,  ioa,  11-14,  I5&5  HI:  16-18;  IV:  19-21.  I 
consists  of  pentapodies;  II  is  made  up  of  heptapodies;  III  is  a  series  of 
four  heptapodies,  each,  with  the  exception  of  the  last,  followed  by  a  tripody; 
while  IV  contains  heptapodies  only.  In  addition  to  the  changes  noted 
above,  he  removes  a  few  glosses  from  the  text,  and  makes  some  other  minor 
alterations  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  notice  here;  but  his  proposition  to 
drop  the  bfcfc  from  each  of  the  eight  prohibitions  in  vss.  12-14,  and  unite 
the  conjunction  with  the  verb  as  a  waw-conjunciive  is  in  opposition  to  all 
principles  of  sober  criticism.  Our  present  text  could  never  have  arisen 
from  the  reading  which  he  proposes.  It  is  true  that  dittographies  and 
other  mistakes  in  copying  sometimes  occasion  trouble;  but  here  we  are 
asked  to  believe  that  something  of  the  kind  has  happened  in  each  of  eight 
consecutive  clauses,  and  the  same  thing  in  every  case,  changing  a  very  easy 
reading  into  one  of  such  difficulty  that  it  has  given  commentators  no  end  of 
trouble.  The  removing  of  30  to  the  beginning  of  vs.  6  is  a  change  for  the 
worse;  for  the  clause  does  not  fit  well  into  its  new  context,  whereas  in  its 
present  position  in  the  M®  it  gives  peculiar  force  to  the  f>oet's  thought  that 
Edom's  pride  of  heart  is  caused  by  his  inaccessible  habitation.  An  equally 
serious  objection  to  the  change  is  that  it  leaves  the  participles  of  the 
remainder  of  the  verse  hanging  in  the  air  without  a  subject.  Furthermore, 
Sievers  in  his  effort  to  give  each  line  the  requisite  number  of  feet  some- 
times works  havoc  with  the  parallelism,  which  is  generally  recognized  as 
one  of  the  characteristic  features  of  Hebrew  poetry,  as  may  be  seen  from 
his  arrangement  of  vss.  12-1 4  :J 
And  you  gloated  over  your  brother  in  the  day  of  his  adversity,  and  rejoiced  over 

the  sons  of  Judah 

1  In  Hebrew  his  lines  run: 

rrnrn  ^nb  rtoi&m  TOD  dra  Tnxn  *nm 
"W  "WES  sihm  TS  Vrtm  eras  tiro 
iT1^  DTI  inns  rips  or*  fcnm  ti-ns,  rira 
s  rn-onb  pnsn  by  T 
-#*    -*#    -# 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  5 

In  the  day  of  their  destruction  and  uttered  proud  words  and  entered  the  gate  of 

my  people 
In  the  day  of  their  calamity,  and  you  gloated,  even  you,  over  his  injury  in  the 

day  of  his  calamity, 
And  you  put  forth  your  hand  upon  his  wealth,  and  you  stood  upon  the  crossway 

to  cut  off  his  fugitives, 
And  you  delivered  up  his  survivors  in  the  day  of  distress,  .... 

He  has  dropped  "in  the  day  of  his  distress"1  at  the  end  of  vs.  12,  and 
"in  the  day  of  his  calamity"2  from  the  close  of  vs.  13,  and  has  a  gap  of 
three  feet  at  the  end  of  vs.  14,  although  the  section  does  not  close  with 
that  verse.  If  these  heptapodies  which  ignore  the  parallelism  for  the  sake 
of  the  meter  are  contrasted  with  the  perfect  parallelisms  of  the  qinah- 
verses  offered  in  the  lines  of  the  Massorites,  it  is  easy  to  see  that  the  arrange- 
ment of  Sievers  is  not  that  of  the  prophet.  In  the  $M&  emphasis  is  put 
upon  "the  day  of  his  calamity,"  or  "distress,"  or  "destruction"  at  the  end 
of  each  line,  with  the  exception  of  140,  which  is  out  of  place  here;  but  in 
the  proposed  grouping  of  feet  all  these  fine  touches  of  the  poet  are  lost.  His 
division,  on  metrical  grounds,  of  vss.  16-21  into  two  sections,  16-18  and 
19-21,  does  not  commend  itself;  for  when  the  recognized  glosses  are 
removed  and  the  text  put  in  order,  his  whole  scheme  falls  to  the  ground. 
We  see  no  good  reason  for  departing  from  the  general  view  which  regards 
the  rest  of  the  book  from  vs.  1 7  to  the  end,  aside  from  explanatory  glosses, 
as  from  one  hand.  Vs.  1 6  is  no  part  of  the  original  text,  as  we  shall  see 
below. 

Another  thing  which  arouses  suspicion  that  Sievers  is  doing  violence  to 
the  language  in  the  interest  of  a  theory  is  the  number  of  syllables^  some- 
times five,  sometimes  four  long  ones,  which  he  forces  into  a  single  anapest. 

J.  M.  P.  Smith,  "The  Structure  of  Obadiah,"  The  American  Journal 
of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures  (January,  1906),  pp.  131-38,  while 
agreeing  with  Wellhausen,  Nowack,  and  Marti  on  most  points,  makes  a 
new  departure  by  athetizing  vss.  12-14.  In  the  meantime  the  unity  of 
Obadiah  has  had  its  defenders.  Hitzig  refers  "the  captives  of  this  fortress " 
to  the  Jews  carried  away  into  Egypt  and  settled  there  in  fortresses  by 
Ptolemy  Lagi,  312  B.  c.  (Josephus,  Arch.,  XII,  i,  i;  contra  Apion,  II,  4). 
In  the  "report"  of  vs.  i  he  sees  an  allusion  to  the  command  for  an  expedi- 
tion against  Petra,  which  was  given  by  Antigonus  immediately  after  Ptolemy 

*  ms  DTD 
ova 

K  ,  COT  rnai,  TIB?  mai  and  TnE  rPPP   are  good  illustra- 
tions from  vss.  17  and  18. 


6  INTRODUCTION  TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH 

had  wasted  the  Palestinian  coast.  Hitzig  supposes  that  the  author  of 
Obadiah  was  one  of  the  captives  and  that  he  wrote  his  prophecy  in  a  castle 
in  Egypt.  He  was  the  first  scholar  to  assign  so  late  a  date  for  the  entire 
prophecy,  making  no  distinction  between  early  and  late.  Nowack  brings  a 
valid  objection  against  Hitzig' s  view  from  the  fact  that  at  that  time  the 
Edomites  were  no  longer  in  possession  of  Petra. 

Caspari,  Delitzsch,  Keil,  Orelli,  Kirkpatrick,  Peters,  and  others  con- 
sider the  whole  of  Obadiah  pre-exilic  in  its  origin.  The  most  of  those 
who  take  this  position  see  the  occasion  for  the  prophecy  in  the  capture 
and  plundering  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Philistines  and  Arabians  under 
Jehoram,  recorded  in  II  Chron.  2i:i6f.  But  this  supposition  renders 
impossible  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  vss.  11-14,  which  are  almost 
universally  recognized  as  referring  to  the  sacking  of  Jerusalem  by  the 
Chaldaeans  aided  by  the  Edomites.  Few  of  Peters'  twenty-five  or  thirty 
parallels  to  prove  the  unity  of  authorship  are  of  any  value;  for  they  are, 
almost  without  exception,  within  sections  which  no  one  had  ever  thought 
of  dividing,  or  of  such  a  character  that  they  might  be  matched  in  any 
passage  of  equal  length.  The  historical  method  has  made  this  view 
untenable.  The  historical  method  of  interpretation  which  proceeds 
upon  the  supposition  that  the  prophet's  sermon  always  contains  a 
message  for  his  own  day  necessitates  the  division  of  the  book  into  at 
least  two  parts. 

Although  we  can  accept  the  view  of  Wellhausen,  Nowack,  and  Marti 
that  the  main  division  comes  in  vs.  15,  still  we  cannot  follow  them  in  mak- 
ing vss.  1-7  a  record  of  past  events,  or  even  of  things  just  transpiring,  and 
at  the  same  time  consider  vss.  1-14,  156  with  the  exception  of  6  and  7^-9 
a  unit.  For  the  Edomites,  suffering  the  disasters  recorded  in  vss.  1-7, 
would  hardly  be  in  a  state  of  mind  or  in  position  to  commit  the  crimes 
against  which  they  are  warned  in  vss.  12-14.  Again,  the  penalty  is  still 
in  the  future  (vs.  15):  "as  you  have  done,  so  shall  it  be  done  to  you." 
Nothing  is  gained  by  regarding  with  Marti  the  imperfects  of  this  verse 
as  presents:  "Your  deed  is  returning  upon  your  own  head;"  for  we  are 
immediately  confronted  with  the  prohibitions  in  vss.  12-14.  This  brings 
us  to  a  difficulty  in  the  way  of  making  vs.  n  and  vss.  12-14  parts  of  the 
same  piece;  for  in  the  latter  the  prophet  is  looking  to  the  future,  and  the 
tenses  of  the  former  make  it  equally  certain  that  the  events  described  in 
that  verse  are  in  the  past.  The  statements  of  vs.  1 1  make  known  the  part 
which  the  Edomites  took  with  the  Babylonians  against  the  Jews  when  the 
city  of  Jerusalem  was  captured.  The  prohibitions  in  the  three  following 
verses  are  directed  against  what  the  Edomites  were  doing,  or  were  about 


OF 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  7 

to  do  when  the  prophet  appeared,  who  here  makes  an  earnest  protest 
against  their  conduct. 

It  will  not  do,  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  the  language,  to  render  "  You 
should  not  have  looked  ....  should  not  have  entered,"  etc.,  as  is  done 
by  Mercer,  Grotius,  Ewald,  Winckler,  and  others,  an  interpretation  which 
has  found  its  way  into  Koenig's  Syntax,  1906,  where  he  says,  "The  fcOft  bfc* 
of  Obad.,  vss.  12-14  m  a  context  of  the  past  with  'and'  would  mean  'And 

you  ought  not  to  have '"  This  is  in  substantial  agreement  with 

Rashi  and  Kimchi,  who  render  "It  was  not  for  you  to  look,"  and  with 
Aben  Ezra's  "It  was  not  fitting  that  you  look."  But  all  these  propositions 
are  to  be  rejected,  because  no  one  of  their  advocates  is  able  to  produce  a 
single  example  of  such  usage,  Koenig's  rule  being  based  upon  this  passage 
alone. 

Others  feeling  the  grammatical  difficulty  in  the  way  of  the  above  render- 
ings have  various  devices  for  saving  these  verses  for  the  past.  Hitzig, 
Nowack,  G.  A.  Smith,  Marti,  and  some  others  have  supposed  that  the 
prophet,  in  vivid  realization  of  Edom's  crime,  has  projected  himself  into 
the  scenes  of  the  past,  and  is  speaking  from  an  imaginary  standpoint,  pro- 
hibiting what  has  already  been  done — a  thing  of  which  there  is  not  a  hint 
in  the  text.  Johannes  thinks  that  the  warning  is  sarcastic.  But  all  this 
seems  to  be  a  makeshift  unsupported  by  anything  found  elsewhere  in  the 
prophets,  to  avoid  an  apparent  difficulty,  and  so  is  no  less  objectionable 
than  the  position  of  those  who  put  the  prophet  before  the  capture  of  Jerusa- 
lem by  the  Babylonians,  and  have  him  predict  not  only  the  punishment 
of  Edom,  but  also  the  crimes  for  which  he  suffers  it.  Both  alike  abandon 
the  historical  method  of  interpretation,  and  upon  a  priori  grounds  inject 
into  the  language  of  the  prophet  an  unnatural,  not  to  say  impossible,  mean- 
ing, bfcfc  with  the  imperfect  must  refer  to  the  future.  If  vs.  7  is  a  record 
of  history,  past  or  in  the  making,  vss.  12-14  cannot  be  a  continuation  of 
vss.  i-n;  for  in  that  case  the  Edomites  would  be  warned  against  doing 
that  which  for  them  was  impossible.  If  vss.  1-7  contain  a  prediction  based 
upon  a  movement  among  the  nations  threatening  the  destruction  of  the 
Edomites,  the  prophet  might  upbraid  them  for  their  crimes  and  preach 
judgment  in  view  of  the  impending  calamity;  but  the  time  for  warnings 
such  as  are  found  in  vss.  1 2-14  would  then  be  past.  For  syntactical  reasons 
we  cannot  consider  vss.  i-n  and  12-14  parts  of  the  same  poem.  Further- 
more, vss.  i-n  are  composed  in  the  trimeter  movement,  while  vss.  12-14 
are  in  the  qinah-meter.  J.  M.  P.  Smith  is  right  in  athetizing  vss.  12-14; 
for  they  are  from  a  different  author,  or  at  least  written  on  a  different  occasion 
from  that  of  vss.  i-n. 


8  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH 

Vss.  12-14  form  an  independent  section,  but  they  have  received  some 
additions  since  leaving  the  pen  of  their  author.  Vs.  14(1*  in  the  position 
which  it  occupies  in  the  IKS!  is  peculiar  in  that  it  departs  from  all  the 
other  qinah-veTses  of  the  series  in  which  it  is  found;  for  the  second  member 
of  each  consists  of  "in  the  day  of,"  followed  by  a  genitive  expressing  mis- 
fortune or  disaster,  which  in  the  line  under  consideration  is  missing.  Again, 
the  order  of  the  thought  presents  a  serious  difficulty,  because  in  140  "his 
escaped  ones"  have  been  "cut  off,"  while  in  146  the  Edomites  are  exhorted 
not  to  "deliver  up  his  survivors."  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  originally 
the  line  immediately  followed  vs.  n,  and  that  after  the  displacement  was 
made  bs$  was  inserted  between  the  1  and  the  verb,  that  the  beginning 
might  conform  to  that  of  the  other  lines  of  the  series.  If  it  is  restored  to 
this  place,  the  sequence  of  thought  is  all  that  could  be  desired. 

It  is  evident  that  136  is  a  variant  of  120,  a  conclusion  which  I  had 
reached  and  recorded  in  manuscript  before  I  read  J.  M.  P.  Smith's  "Struc- 
ture of  Obadiah;"  but  it  is  unnecessary  to  make  the  sweeping  changes 
proposed  in  these  verses  by  Winckler,  Wellhausen,  Nowack,  and  Marti, 
who  regard  the  two  as  variants  of  one  and  the  same  verse.  For  if  i$b2  is 
rejected  as  a  dittography  of  120,  and  140  is  restored  to  its  proper  position 
at  the  end  of  vs.  n,  what  remains  makes  a  good  strophe  of  six  lines  in  the 
qinah-meter. 

The  causal  clauses  in  vss.  15  and  16  are  not  easy  to  dispose  of  in  the 
present  arrangement  of  the  text,  as  may  be  seen  from  the  many  efforts 
to  give  the  passage  an  intelligible  meaning.  Drusius  and  Rosenmueller 
made  the  "^  of  150  refer  back  to  the  statement  "cut  off  forever"  at  the 
end  of  vs.  10;  Caspari  supposed  the  *5  of  150  and  that  of  i6a  to  be  co-ordi- 
nate, and  that  these  two  verses  give  the  reason  for  the  warnings  found  in 
vss.  12-14;  but  Mercer  would  have  i6a  refer  to  i$a.  But  none  of  these 
treatments  can  be  called  satisfactory;  for  we  have  either:  (i)  a  sudden 
change,  without  warning,  from  Edomites  to  Jews  in  the  persons  addressed 
(Aben  Ezra,  G.  A.  Smith,  and  others),  or  (2)  we  must  understand  "drink" 

1  It  is  interesting   to   note   that   Symmachus  had  rets  <f>vya5elas  avrov  (Field's 
Hexapla),  i.  e.,  "bands  of  fugitives,"  in  the  place  of  p^SH,  so  there  is  a  bare  possibility 
that  the  latter  word  arose  from  a  dittography  of  I^IO^bS  which  now  appears  after  the 
infinitive,  and  that   DTO   has  dropped  out.     In  that  case  we  should  restore  the  line 
as  follows:  "imDPl  DTU  T't3"lbS  by  Tayn  btfl .     But  as  all  the  other  ancient  ver- 
sions support  the  Hebrew  text,  this  course  has  little  in  its  favor,  and  the  line  is  to  be 
removed  from  its  present  position.    The  "fugitive  bands"  of  Symmachus  may  have 
been  an  attempt  on  his  part  to  translate  pISH . 

2  In  fc^n  b&S  vs.  136  has  preserved  the  correct  reading;  for  the   1  is  without 
meaning  at  the  beginning  of  the  section,  and  if  we  reject  it,  each  tristich  of  the  strophe 
will  begin  with  the  simple  btf  . 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  9 

in  i6a  to  refer  to  the  reveling  of  the  Edomites,  and  in  i6b  to  the  punish- 
ment which  all  nations  suffer  on  the  day  of  Yahweh  (Rashi,  Kimchi, 
Hitzig,  Peters,  and  others),  or  (3)  the  perfect  DtVlTlZJ  in  i6a  must  be  ex- 
plained of  the  future  punishment  of  the  Edomites  (Happach,  Pusey,  and 
others),  all  of  which  is  forced  and  unnatural.  To  avoid  the  difficulty  in 
(i),  Winckler  suggests  the  reading  ItftiT  ....  DrP&ttBn  for  DtVrv^ 
"IJTYtir  .  .  .  .  ,  translating  "  For  as  ye  have  destroyed  my  holy  mountain,  so 
shall  all  nations  be  destroyed."  But  this  still  leaves  us  without  an  expla- 
nation of  the  fact  that,  while  hitherto  Edom  has  appeared  in  the  singular 
only,  now  for  the  first  time  the  nation  is  addressed  in  the  plural.  More- 
over, the  nations  in  vss.  1-14  are  the  agents  under  Yahweh  for  the 
destruction  of  Edom,  but  now  in  the  day  of  the  Lord  they  perish  together 
with  Edom  in  the  judgment.  Again,  as  Nowack  points  out,  a  contrast 
between  Edomites  reveling  on  Mount  Zion  and  the  heathen  drinking 
the  cup  of  Yahweh's  wrath  gives  no  intelligible  meaning.  Wellhausen, 
followed  by  Nowack,  Marti,  and  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  proposes  to  put  156 
before  150  and  let  it  end  the  section,  joining  150  with  16  ff.  In  that  case 
we  have  at  the  beginning  of  a  piece  the  second  person  plural  without  any 
vocative  to  indicate  who  are  addressed.  If  it  is  assumed  that  it  is  the 
Jews,  then  the  Jews  are  contrasted  with  all  the  nations,  including  Edom, 
who  drink  and  perish  utterly.  Edom  has  become  as  if  he  had  not  been, 
while  in  marked  contrast  there  is  an  escaped  remnant  in  Mount  Zion. 
After  Edom  has  been  completely  annihilated  in  Yahweh's  judgment  upon 
the  heathen  in  vs.  16,  why  introduce  him  in  vs.  1 8  to  be  again  consumed 
by  Jacob?  In  this  entire  piece,  aside  from  vs.  16,  the  interest  is  con- 
fined to  Jacob's  victory  over  Edom,  and  the  regaining  of  his  territory  and 
dominion.  This  verse  is  a  disturbing  element,  having  no  vital  con- 
nection with  any  other  part  of  the  prophecy.  It  is  a  later  addition,  and 
may  have  been  suggested  by  Jer.  49:12;  or  25:15-17.  If  we  remove 
it  from  the  text,  transfer  176  to  the  beginning  of  vs.  19,  as  both  form  and 
subject-matter  indicate,  and  eliminate  a  few  explanatory  glosses,  the 
thought  of  the  piece  flows  on  without  interruption  from  beginning  to  end. 
The  same  hand  that  inserted  vs.  16  may  have  added  "upon  all  nations" 
to  150;  for  with  this  single  exception,  the  prophet  is  interested  in  the 
destruction  of  Edom  only.  Furthermore,  it  overburdens  the  line  which 
is  a  perfect  trimeter  without  it. 

Beginning  with  vs.  yd  the  viewpoint  is  entirely  different  from  that  of  the 
preceding  portion  of  the  book.  The  third  person  takes  the  place  of  direct 
address.  We  have  sometimes,  it  is  true,  a  sudden  change  from  the  second 
person  to  the  third,  when  the  prophet  under  the  influence  of  excitement 


10  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH 

gives  utterance  to  an  exclamation.  But  here,  apparently  without  reason, 
such  a  change  is  sustained  through  six  lines.  How  abrupt  the  transition 
from  "They  have  driven  thee  to  the  border,"  etc.,  to  " There  is  no  under- 
standing in  him!  In  that  day,  is  the  oracle  of  Yahweh,  'I  will  destroy 
wise  men  from  Edom,  and  understanding  from  Mount  Esau.'"  Well- 
hausen  and  others  who  follow  him  are  undoubtedly  right  in  regarding  vss. 
7^-9  as  an  interpolation.  But  we  see  no  sufficient  reason  for  regarding  vs. 
6  as  spurious.  The  arguments  offered  against  it  do  not  seem  to  us  valid. 
There  is  little  force  to  Marti's  objection  to  its  genuineness  on  the  ground 
that  in  vs.  7  the  disaster  that  overtakes  Edom  is  not  a  plundering  but  a 
driving-out,  inasmuch  as  he  retains  vs.  5,  which  forcibly  calls  the  attention 
to  stealing  and  plundering.  Wellhausen,  Nowack,  and  Marti  condemn 
vs.  6  as  a  gloss,  because  of  the  use  of  the  third  person  for  Edom,  although, 
both  before  and  after,  the  nation  is  addressed.  But  in  a  case  like  this  the 
change  of  person  is  too  common  to  excite  wonder.  A  good  example  is 
found  in  Isa.  i  :2ia,  in  which  the  prophet  injects  the  exclamation,  "How  has 
the  faithful  city  become  a  harlot !"  into  the  middle  of  an  address  to  Jerusa- 
lem. Even  Marti  himself  (Kurzer  Hand-Commentar}  sees  nothing  irregular 
in  this  passage.  For  numerous  other  illustrations  see  Koenig's  Stilistik, 
pp.  238  ff.  So  we  retain  the  verse  with  Kuenen,  G.  A.  Smith,  Winckler, 
J.  M.  P.  Smith,  and  others. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  sum  up  the  results  of  our  investigation.  We 
find  that  the  Book  of  Obadiah,  to  say  nothing  of  glosses,  consists  of  three 
well-defined  sections:  (A)  vss.  1-70,  10,  n,  140,  156;  (B)  vss.  12,  i^ac, 
146;  (C)  vss.  150  (15^),  170,  18,  i*jb,  19-21;  and  two  interpolations: 
(X)  vss.  7^-9;  (Y)  vs.  1 6.  They  all  have  Edom  as  their  object  and  this 
fact  is  their  common  bond  of  union.  The  vision  of  Obadiah,  as  we  have 
it  in  the  iHQF,  is  not  a  unit,  but  a  collection  of  oracles  against  this  unnatural 
brother  of  Judah.  The  basis  of  the  book  is  section  A.  Some  collector  of 
the  oracles  of  Obadiah  has  inserted  B  between  vss.  n  and  14,  entering 
it  as  a  protest  against  the  conduct  of  Edom  described  in  the  former  verse, 
and  in  a  subsequent  copying  140  and  146  exchanged  places.  For  such 
transposition  see  vs.  5  compared  with  Jer.  49:9.  The  author  of  C  using 
A  and  B  as  the  foundation  of  his  own  message,  begins  his  poem  immediately 
after  the  protest  of  vss.  12-14,  with  verse  150,  "For  the  day  of  Yahweh  is 
near,"  and  saves  156  as  a  part  of  his  own  work.  When  or  by  whom  X 
and  Y  were  interpolated,  it  is  impossible  to  say.  Copying  or  recopying 
with  the  dittographies,  glosses  and  displacements  has  resulted  in  the  text 
of  the  Massorites.  For  further  discussion  of  details,  see  textual  criticism 
under  the  various  sections,  and  the  appended  notes  at  the  close. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  II 


A.    THE  VISION  OF  OBADIAH  CONCERNING  EDOM 

In  fixing  the  date  of  this  piece  (vss.  i-yc,  10,  n,  140,  156),  our 
only  source  of  information  is  the  prophecy  itself.  A  careful  reading 
reveals  the  fact  that  behind  the  author  is  a  capture  of  Jerusalem  the 
details  of  which  are  still  fresh  in  his  memory,  embittering  him  against 
the  Edomites  because  they  identified  themselves  with  the  enemy  in 
plundering  the  city,  and,  stationing  themselves  at  suitable  points  along 
the  lines  of  flight,  cut  down  the  fleeing  Jews  as  they  were  trying  to  make 
their  escape. 

Four  captures  of  Jerusalem  are  recorded  in  the  Old  Testament.  The 
first  of  these  by  Shishak  mentioned  in  I  Kings  14: 25  f.,  no  one  brings  into 
connection  with  our  prophecy;  for  the  Edomites  remained  in  subjection 
to  Judah  and  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  As  foreigners  are  the  principal 
actors  (Obad.,  vs.  n),  the  conquest  under  Amaziah,  when  Joash  of  Israel 
broke  down  four  hundred  cubits  of  the  wall  of  Jerusalem  and  plundered 
the  treasures  of  the  temple  and  the  palace,  is  excluded.  Delitzsch,  Keil, 
Orelli,  Kirkpatrick,  and  others  have  thought  of  the  statement  in  II  Chron. 
21  :i6f.  as  furnishing  the  historical  background  for  Obadiah.  The  deter- 
mining factor  in  this  hypothesis  is  the  supposition  that  the  relation  of 
Jer.  49:7-22  to  Obadiah  in  which  the  more  original  form  of  the  prophecy 
appears  makes  impossible  the  dating  of  our  book  later  than  the  fourth 
year  of  Jehoiakim's  reign  (Jer.  46:  i  f.),  and  so  of  necessity  there  can  be  no 
thought  of  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  under  Nebuchadrezzar.  But  inas- 
much as  it  is  now  recognized  that  chaps.  46-49  of  Jeremiah  in  their  pres- 
ent form  are  very  late  (Stade,  Schwally,  Smend,  Wellhausen,  Nowack, 
and  others),  and  since  the  proof -passage  from  Chronicles  makes  no 
mention  of  the  Edomites,  there  is  nothing  to  be  said  in  favor  of  this 
position. 

The  only  sacking  of  the  city  that  will  satisfy  all  the  conditions,  and 
especially  the  part  taken  by  the  Edomites,  is  the  one  by  the  Babylonians 
under  Nebuchadrezzar  in  the  war  that  ended  with  the  breaking-up  of  the 
nation  and  its  captivity.  Wellhausen,  Nowack,  Marti,  and  others  think 
that  this  is  the  only  situation  into  which  our  piece  will  fit.  Marti  says  that 
the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Chaldaeans  can  be  the  only  one  meant. 
The  conduct  of  Edom  at  that  time  called  forth  the  bitter  denunciations 
of  other  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  (Ps.  137 17;  Ezek.,  chaps.  35  and  36; 
Lam.  4:22). 

Another  factor  entering  the  problem  is  the  impending  humbling  of  the 
proud  Edomites  who  rely  upon  their  impregnable  stronghold.  At  the 


12  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OB  ADI  AH 

call  of  Yahweh's  messenger  the  nations  are  already  rising,  and  Edom  is  to 
be  cut  off  forever  because  of  violence  done  his  brother  nation,  Judah.  This, 
however,  is  denied  by  Wellhausen  and  Nowack  who  insist  that  we  have  in 
this  section  a  record  of  past  events  and  not  a  statement  of  something  yet 
to  be  realized  in  the  expectation  of  the  prophet.  In  support  of  this  view  are 
offered  the  perfects  in  vss.  1-7  and  the  detailed  statements  in  vs.  7.  But  a 
series  of  perfects  describing  future  events  is  common  enough  in  prophetic 
literature,  and  picturesque  descriptions  entering  into  details,  such  as  are 
offered  in  vs.  7,  are  not  without  parallels  in  the  imaginative  language  of  the 
Old  Testament  prophets.  The  predictive  element  of  Isa.  9:1-60  is  not 
called  into  question,  although  the  prophet  with  a  single  exception  uses  the 
perfect  or  its  equivalent  throughout.  There  seem  to  be  insuperable  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  this  position  of  Wellhausen' s;  for  both  syntax  and 
subject-matter  are  in  opposition  to  it;  so  it  is  practically  abandoned  by 
Marti,  who  considers  our  piece  a  prophetic  estimate  of  events  just  trans- 
piring when  the  prophet  appears.  The  objections  to  this  view  are:  (i) 
The  natural  explanation  of  the  rising  of  the  nations  (vs.  i)  is  that  they  may 
in  the  future  execute  the  decree  of  Yahweh.  (2)  The  condition  in  vs.  4 
looks  to  the  future  and  would  have  little  or  no  meaning,  if  Edom  had  already 
been  brought  down.  (3)  Had  the  prophet  been  looking  back  upon  the 
past  conquest  of  Edom,  we  should  expect  in  the  apodosis  of  his  contrary- 
to-fact  conditions  not  the  imperfect  but  the  perfect.  (4)  This  calamity 
overtakes  the  Edomites  as  a  punishment  because  of  their  sin  against  a 
brother  nation  (vs.  10),  and  that  penalty  has  not  yet  been  visited,  but  is 
still  in  the  future  (vs.  15),  "as  you  have  done,  it  shall  be  done  to  you;  your 
deed  shall  return  upon  your  own  head." 

History  has  very  little  information  to  give  on  the  driving  of  the  Edomites 
out  of  their  land.  In  312  B.  c.  their  territory  was  in  possession  of  the 
Nabataeans  (Diodorus,  XIX,  94),  and  had  already  become  a  desolation 
more  than  a  century  earlier,  when  the  Book  of  Malachi  was  written;  so 
Wellhausen,  Nowack,  Marti,  and  others  put  the  prophecy  in  the  first  half 
of  the  fifth  century  B.  c.  This  is  done  upon  the  assumption  that  the 
actual  driving-out  of  the  Edomites  was  the  occasion  of  our  prophecy  and  that 
this  took  place  about  the  beginning  of  that  century.  So  far  as  definite 
proof  is  concerned,  there  is  none.  But  if  we  knew  just  when  they  were 
expelled  from  their  country  (unfortunately  we  know  nothing  about  it), 
it  would  not  necessarily  fix  the  date  of  vss.  1-7.  If  Edom  was  ripe  for 
judgment,  our  only  question  is :  Was  there  a  movement  among  the  nations 
to  give  point  to  such  a  message  ?  It  does  not  concern  us  to  know  whether 
the  Edomites,  when  they  were  banished  from  their  home-land,  were  driven 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  13 

out  in  just  the  manner  here  described  or  not.  It  is  not  necessary  to  suppose 
that  such  an  attack  ever  took  place  in  the  time  of  our  prophet. 

It  is  a  recognized  probability  that  the  movement  of  the  Scythians  in  the 
north  called  out  Zephaniah  with  his  message  of  judgment  upon  Jerusalem, 
although  the  expected  punishment  of  Judah  never  came  from  that  source. 
The  same  uprising  of  that  wild  people  was  the  occasion  of  the  earlier  oracles 
of  Jeremiah.  While  the  predicted  judgment  of  Yahweh  upon  the  sinful 
nation  did  not  fail,  the  agents  in  its  execution,  when  it  came,  were  not  the 
Scythians,  but  the  Babylonians,  a  generation  after  the  time  of  the  message. 
In  Isa.  10:28-32  the  prophet  gives  an  imaginary  and  picturesque  descrip- 
tion of  the  march  of  the  Assyrian  upon  Jerusalem,  entering  into  details.  He 
expects  him  to  make  his  way  through  the  cities  and  passes  of  the  north,  one 
after  the  other,  until  he  reaches  Judah's  capital.  But  when  Sennacherib 
invaded  the  country,  he  came  not  over  the  course  seen  in  the  vision  of  the 
prophet,  but  from  the  southwest.  To  take  one  more  example,  that 
recorded  in  Isa.,  chap.  13,  Yahweh  marshals  his  hosts  in  the  mountains, 
there  is  a  slaughtering  of  men,  plundering  of  houses,  and  dishonoring  of 
women;  for  he  has  stirred  up  the  Medes  against  Babylon  for  the  purpose 
of  making  that  proud  city  an  everlasting  desolation.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Babylon  passed  into  the  hands  of  Cyrus  without  a  struggle  and  remained 
intact. 

For  the  expulsion  of  the  Edomites  our  sources  leave  open  the  period 
from  586  B.  c.  to  the  writing  of  Malachi  around  450  B.  c.  without  a  hint  as 
to  when  or  how  it  was  done.  The  numerous  citations  above  from  the 
prophets  prove  that  in  fixing  the  date  of  our  piece  we  need  not  know  when 
these  enemies  of  the  Jews  were  forced  out  of  their  territory.  The  prophet's 
vivid  recollection  of  the  scenes  connected  with  the  capture  and  destruction 
of  Jerusalem  favors  a  time  very  soon  after  that  terrible  calamity  had  over- 
taken him  and  his  fellow-countrymen.  So  we  have  only  to  inquire  whether 
soon  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  there  was  an  uprising  or  commotion  among 
the  nations  to  furnish  occasion  for  vss.  1-7.  Josephus  tells  us  (Ant.,  X,  9) 
that  five  years  after  the  destruction  of  Judah's  capital,  Nebuchadrezzar 
invaded  Coele-Syria  and  made  war  upon  the  Moabites  and  Ammonites. 
Ewald  (History  of  Israel,  Vol.  IV,  p.  277,  English  transl.)  accepts  the  his- 
toricity of  this  statement  and  sees  a  confirmation  of  it  in  Jer.  52  :  30,  and  Ezek., 
chap.  21  (20:45  —  21  -.32),  and  we  may  add  that  the  part  played  by  Baalis, 
king  of  the  Ammonites,  against  Gedaliah  was  an  act  of  war  against  Babylon 
which  Nebuchadrezzar  would  not  be  likely  to  overlook.  This  rising  of  the 
Moabites  and  Ammonites  would  give  the  prophet  an  occasion  for  his 
message  against  the  Edomites,  and  would  make  possible  the  treachery  of 


14  INTRODUCTION  TO   STUDY  OF   OB  ADI  AH 

their  allies,  the  neighboring  Arabs,  seen  in  his  vision.  There  is  no  reason 
for  considering  this  section  a  historical  sketch;  for  the  prophet  might 
well  draw  -upon  his  imagination  for  every  statement  in  it.  It  was  no  new 
thing  in  the  Semitic  world  of  that  time  for  allies  to  prove  false  and  disappoint 
the  expectations  of  those  who  relied  upon  them.  Edom  in  his  invincible 
fortresses  may  not  be  overcome  by  force  of  arms;  but  treachery  of  allies 
professing  friendship  may  entice  him  from  his  strongholds  and  cause  his 
destruction. 

This  section  consists  of  five  strophes,  each  containing  six  lines,  with  the 
exception  of  the  last,  which  is  made  up  of  eight.  Every  strophe  makes 
its  special  contribution  to  the  thought  of  the  poem.  In  strophe  I,  Yahweh, 
through  his  messenger,  summons  the  nations  against  Edom,  humbles 
him,  and  brings  him  into  contempt.  Strophe  II  gives  a  lively  description 
of  Edom  filled  with  pride,  relying  upon  his  rocky  fortress  and  bidding 
defiance  to  heaven  itself,  but  brought  low  in  spite  of  his  inaccessible  habi- 
tation. Strophe  III  pictures  the  fearful  devastation  wrought  by  the  enemy 
while  in  strophe  IV  former  friends  and  allies  drive  him  from  his  land. 
Strophe  V  justifies  the  judgment  of  Yahweh  by  citing  Edom's  part  in 
plundering  Jerusalem,  and  in  the  slaying  of  her  fugitives.  The  two  closing 
lines  call  attention  to  the  main  thought,  declaring  that  the  coming  disaster 
is  a  righteous  retribution  visited  upon  the  Edomites  who  are  to  be  paid  in 
their  own  coin. 

ma*  •pm 
rrrr  n»a  - 


rranb^b 


1  7"PrP  Wtf  "Y52fc$  rO  is  a  stereotyped  expression  often  used  in  prophecy,  but  not 
suitable  here,  because  what  follows  would  have  no  meaning  in  the  mouth  of  Yahweh. 
It  is  to  be  removed  as  secondary  with  Nowack,  Marti,  and  others. 

2  The  LXX  reads  with  Jer.  49:14  itiyQlD  instead  of  WDID  ,  but  the  latter  as 
the  more  difficult  reading  is  to  be  retained.     The  prophet  represents  his  people  as 
hearing  the  report  along  with  himself. 

3  In  this  and  the  following  line  Jeremiah  has  preserved  the  better  reading;   for, 
as  J.  M.  P.  Smith  has  pointed  out,  the  one  line  of  Obadiah  is  too  long,  is  repetitious, 
and  lacks  the  descriptive  quality  of  Jeremiah. 

4  It  is  unnecessary  to  read  Iv^  with  Wellhausen,  Marti,  and   others,  as  the 
prophet  may  have  had  in  mind  the  country  of  Edom,  as  in  Jer.  49  :  14. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OB  ADI  AH  15 

pp  ran  2 


•ar-ion  "ab  •i'ir   3 


•p« 

3-pp  iizjDD  rrMn  DK   4 
rrrr  DSD 


4-jb  i«a  D""»sa  DK   s&  in 
mbb?  Tra-ar  Kibn 

as    s^ 


-ffl  bia^n  u   7    iv 


6h]T\nn 

1  Read  DTK1  for  *TS"a  ,  as   in  Jer.  49:15,  because  of   the  parallel   (Nowack, 
Selbie,  Marti,  J.  M.  P.  Smith). 

2  Read   with   the   Greek,   Syriac,   Vulgate,    and    Nowack  D"H1Q  ;     Marti   who 
thinks  that  IfQti?  D"Htt  is  much  better  than  the  circumstantial  n7S}  D'Htt  ^IDBn 
of   Jeremiah.     Furthermore,  irQID  0^*113   makes  a  fine  parallelism  in  thought   to 


3  D^tD  D^SDID  "pS  Di5  which  is  not  found  in  the  parallel  passage  of  Jeremiah 
betrays  its  secondary  character  by  leaving  miUl"!  without  an  object  (J.  M.  P.  Smith). 

4  The  text  of  Obadiah  in  vs.  5,  with  its  additions,  is  inferior  to  that  of  Jer.  49:9, 
which  enables  us  to  set  the  verse  in  order.     Omit  Hbv  'H'Tl'O  DK  as  a  gloss  on  Dfet 
0^133  ;   also    nrP'EnD  *]^K    which  is  out  of  place  here   (Wellhausen,   Condamin, 
Cheyne,    Nowack,    Sievers,   J.   M.    P.   Smith),   and    transpose   a   and   b   (Sievers, 
J.  M.  P.  Smith). 

s  Wellhausen,  followed  by  Nowack  and  Marti,  omits  vs.  6  from  the  text  as  a 
later  addition,  but  the  reasons  are  insufficient  and  the  text  may  stand.  See  Intro- 
duction. 

6  Wellhausen  and  many  others  regard  "Jttnb  which  is  not  found  in  the  Greek  as  a 
corrupt  dittography  of  "p251D  .  Omit  with  Wellhausen,  Cheyne,  Nowack,  Marti,  and 
others  11  HDIID  "pS  ,  as  meaningless  in  this  place. 


1  6  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH 

oarta  10 


obisb 

"pE*  DV1  ii      V 


rr  DiwiT  b:n 

nnx  DS 
b? 


rrar  rrw  "ra» 


THE  VISION  OF  OBADIAH  CONCERNING  EDOM 

I 

We  have  heard  a  report  from  Yahweh, 

For  a  messenger  has  been  sent  among  the  nations: 

"Gather  yourselves  together,  and  come  against  her, 

And  rise  up  for  the  battle." 

Behold  I  have  made  you  small  among  the  nations. 

Despised  are  you  among  men. 

II 

The  pride  of  your  heart  has  deceived  you, 

Dwelling  in  the  retreats  of  the  rock, 

Setting  his  habitation  on  high,  saying  in  his  heart, 

Who  can  bring  me  down  to  the  ground  ? 

Though  you  make  your  nest  high  like  the  eagle, 

From  there  will  I  bring  you  down,  is  the  oracle  of  Yahweh. 


If  grape-gatherers  came  to  you, 
Would  they  not  leave  gleanings  ? 
If  thieves  came  unto  you, 


Ill 


1  Vss.  8  and  9,  including     tSpTQ  which  the  LXX  joins  with  vs.  10,  are  regarded  as 
an  interpolation  by  Wellhausen,  Nowack,  G.  A.  Smith,  Marti,  and  others,  so  vs.  7  is 
immediately  followed  by  vs.  10.     For  the  sake  of  the  meter,  drop  with  J.  M.  P.  Smith 
np!?n  which  is  an  inserted  comment  on   "pHX  .     Remove  from  the  text  btSpTQ  as 
a  gloss  on  013H73  (Nowack,  Marti,  J.  M.  P.  Smith). 

2  We  follow  J.  M.  P.  Smith  in  rejecting  ib^Jl  D"HT  trOTD  D1*Q  as  a  prosaic 
marginal  note,  because  it  introduces  the  carrying  away  of  the  spoils  before  the  entrance 
into  the  city  and  the  division  of  the  booty. 

3  For  the  position  of  vs.  140  immediately  after  vs.  n,  see  Introduction. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  17 

Would  they  not  steal  what  sufficed  them  ? 

How  is  Esau  plundered ! 

His  hidden  treasures  how  searched  out ! 

IV 

Even  to  the  boundary  have  they  sent  you; 

All  your  allies  have  deceived  you; 

Men  at  peace  with  you  have  prevailed  over  you, 

Placing  under  you  a  net. 

Because  of  violence  done  your  brother  shame  shall  cover  you, 

And  you  shall  be  cut  off  forever. 

V 

In  the  day  when  you  stood  in  opposition, 

And  strangers  entered  his  gate, 

And  cast  lots  over  Jerusalem, 

Even  you  were  as  one  of  them; 

And  you  stood  at  the  crossway 

To  cut  off  his  fugitives. 

As  you  have  done  so  shall  it  be  done  to  you; 

Your  dealing  shall  return  upon  your  own  head. 

B.    THE  PROPHET'S  PROTEST 

In  section  B  (vss.  12,  130,,  c,  146)  are  found  echoes  of  events  which  we 
know  from  other  Old  Testament  writers  took  place  at  the  fall  of  Jerusalem 
and  soon  afterward.  The  Edomites  who  took  part  in  the  plundering  of 
the  city  are  still  pressing  into  the  territory  of  the  Jews,  taking  possession  of 
their  property  and  cutting  off  the  fugitives,  or  delivering  them  into  the 
hands  of  their  enemies.  Although  they  had  been  allies  of  the  Jews  early 
in  the  war  which  broke  up  the  kingdom  of  Judah  (Jer.  27 13),  the  Edomites 
later  made  common  cause  with  the  enemy,  taking  vengeance  (Ezek.  25 : 12) 
because  they  had  once  borne  the  yoke  of  Judah  (II  Kings  14:7,  22;  16:6). 
We  may  read  their  satisfaction  over  the  downfall  of  their  neighbors,  their 
taunts  and  jeers,  the  eagerness  with  which  they  enter  the  land  to  take 
possession,  and  their  deeds  of  violence,  in  Ezek.  36:5;  35:13,  10,  5.  The 
"day"  which  receives  so  much  emphasis  in  this  little  poem,  recurring  at 
the  end  of  every  line  with  a  genitive  synonymous  of  disaster,  recalls  Ps. 
137:7,  in  which  the  Psalmist  fervently  prays  Yahweh  to  remember  against 
the  sons  of  Edom  the  day  of  Jerusalem;  who  said,  "Rase  it,  rase  it,  even 
to  the  foundation  thereof."  Another  parallel  to  our  passage  and  from  the 
same  period  is  "the  time  of  their  calamity,"  in  Ezek.  35 : 5.  The  neighbors 
of  the  Jews  in  the  day  of  their  disaster  pressed  into  the  country  to  enrich 
themselves  with  what  was  left  of  their  goods  (Stade,  Geschichte,  Vol.  I, 
p.  694),  and  predatory  bands  of  guerrillas  would  be  doing  the  very  things 


1  8  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH 

against  which  the  prophet  protests  in  vss.  12-14.  So  there  is  no  period 
of  Old  Testament  history  into  which  this  piece  will  fit  so  well  as  the  years 
immediately  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Chaldaeans. 

These  verses  written  in  the  qinah-meter  form  a  well-balanced  strophe  of 
two  tristichs  each  containing  a  climax  and  ending  with  the  refrain,  "day  of 
distress."  In  the  first  the  prophet  conceives  of  the  Edomites'  hostility  mani- 
festing itself  with  ever-increasing  intensity  in  three  stages  of  development  : 
(i)  in  looking  upon  the  calamities  of  the  brother  nation  with  complacency 
and  satisfaction;  (2)  in  exulting  over  the  children  of  Judah  in  their  down- 
fall; and  (3)  in  giving  outward  expression  to  their  feelings  in  words  of  scorn 
and  derision.  In  the  second  the  thought  passes  on  to  the  violence  done 
the  property  and  person  of  the  Jews. 

2roD  Dvall-Tifco  'fcon  ba  12 
DYQ  II  HTTP  ^nb  rrawi  ban 
mx  Drn  II  *ps  bwi  ban 
DTI  II  *w  iyan  *nnn  b»  13 
DYalhbtn  3T  nbirn  ban 
mx  ova  II  IT™  n^cn  ban  i4& 


1  In  120  the  DYO  of  T^  DTI   is  a  dittography  (Winckler,  Nowack,  Marti, 
J.  M.  P.  Smith). 

2  A  discussion  of  some  of  the  important  changes  in  the  Jffift  of  vss.  12-14  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Introduction. 

3  Read  T1  nblBfi  with  the  Targum,  Newcome,  Henderson,  Nowack,  Marti,  and 
others.     Koenig  (Lehrgebaude,  Vol.  I,  pp.  285  f.),  after  a  thorough  discussion  of  the 
form,  quotes  with  approval  Olshausen,  who  says  that  the  existing  consonants  were 
written  by  mistake  for  *"P  nbtDD  .     This  appears  to  be  the  simplest  and  the  best  solu- 
tion of  the  difficulty,  although  there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  position  of  those 
who  see  in  this  form  a  variant  of  tf  D  nbtOD  and  suppose  that  JlbtD  is  used  as  in 
II  Sam.  6:6;  22:  17  (  =  Ps.  18:17);  so  Peters,  Buhl-Gesenius,  J.  M.  P.  Smith. 

4  In  i3c  there  is  insufficient  reason  for  changing  ITS  into  DHltf  with  Winckler, 
Nowack,  and  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  or  into  "HUK  with  Marti,  although  the  Greek  does  have 

utv  ;  for  d7rc6Xeia  is  a  favorite  rendering  with  the  LXX  for  the  Hebrew 
and  change  in  number  of  a  pronominal  suffix  is  common  where  the  name  of  a 
person  represents  a  nation.  T^X  is  found  twenty-four  times  in  the  iM®.  In  three 
cases  at  least  the  LXX  evidently  had  another  reading  before  them.  Nine  times  they 
have  dTTtiXeia  as  a  translation  (Deut.  32:35;  Jer.  18:17;  46:21;  Obad.,  vs.  13;  Job 
21:30;  30:12;  31:3;  Prov.  1:26;  6:15),  twice  /cara<rTpo0^  (Job  21:17;  Prov.  1:27), 
and  the  remaining  ten  passages  a  different  word  in  each  case,  all,  however,  containing 
the  idea  of  "calamity,"  "disaster,"  "distress,"  or  "defeat."  It  is  true  that  they 
translate  the  end  of  both  120.  and  136  by  diruXelas  afiruv,  but  the  Vulgate  has  perditionis 
eorum  in  the  former,  and  vastitationis  illius  in  the  latter,  so  the  text  may  stand. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  19 

A  VIGOROUS  PROTEST  AGAINST  EDOM'S  TREATMENT  OF  THE  JEWS  IN 
THE  DAY  OF  DISTRESS 

Gloat  not  over  your  brother  in  the  day  of  his  adversity, 

And  rejoice  not  over  the  sons  of  Judah  in  the  day  of  their  destruction, 

Nor  utter  proud  words  in  the  day  of  distress. 

Enter  not  the  gate  of  my  people  in  the  day  of  their  calamity, 

And  lay  no  hand  upon  their  wealth  in  the  day  of  their  calamity, 

Nor  deliver  up  their  survivors  in  the  day  of  distress. 

C.    ISRAEL  CONQUERS  His  HEREDITARY  FOES,   THE  EDOMITES,   AND 
REGAINS  His  FORMER  GLORY 

From  the  hints  given  in  vss.  150,  17-21  the  date  of  this  oracle  may  be 
fixed  with  a  considerable  degree  of  certainty.  When  after  the  fall  of 
Jerusalem  could  the  prophet  with  such  a  message  have  carried  his  hearers 
with  him  ?  He  is  not  looking  for  deliverance  from  without;  but  the  people 
are  righting  their  own  battles.  He  expects  the  people  of  God  themselves 
will  conquer  their  foes.  His  tone  is  very  different  from  that  of  the  Great 
Prophet  of  the  Exile  who  hopes  for  salvation  through  Cyrus,  "the  anointed 
of  Yahweh,"  whom  he  has  raised  up:  "He  shall  build  my  city,  and  he 
shall  let  my  exiles  go  free." 

Soon  after  the  return  from  the  captivity,  when  the  Jews  are  a  poor  people 
few  in  numbers,  Haggai  (2:6,  22)  comes  out  with  the  promise  that  Yahweh 
will  shake  heaven  and  earth,  overturn  the  throne  of  kingdoms,  overthrow 
chariots  and  those  who  ride  in  them;  and  the  horses  and  their  riders  shall 
come  down,  every  one  by  the  sword  of  his  brother. 

In  chaps.  34  and  63  of  Isaiah  we  have  two  apocalyptic  pictures  of 
judgment  upon  Edom.  In  the  one,  Yahweh's  sword  drunk  with  wrath 
comes  down  from  heaven,  slaughters  the  Edomites,  and  makes  their  land 
an  everlasting  desolation.  In  the  other,  Yahweh,  with  the  day  of  vengeance 
in  his  heart,  treads  the  winepress  alone — there  is  no  man  with  him,  none 
to  help — he  tramples  the  people  in  his  anger,  and  pours  out  their  life-blood 
upon  the  earth. 

In  the  vision  of  Joel  4:9-13  (3:9-13),  the  nations  are  exhorted  to 
prepare  for  war  and  come  to  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  where  Yahweh  will 
enter  into  judgment  with  them.  He  gives  his  heavenly  servants  orders  to 
put  in  the  sickle;  for  the  harvest  is  ripe  and  their  wickedness  is  great. 
The  Jews  themselves  take  no  part  in  the  struggle. 

The  apocalyptic  section  of  Isa.,  chaps.  24-27,  pictures  a  general  judgment 
upon  the  world,  in  which  there  is  a  complete  dissolution  of  the  present 
order  of  things.  The  people  of  God  are  to  escape  by  hiding  until  Yahweh 


20  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH 

visits  upon  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth  punishment  for  their  iniquity. 
Here  Israel  has  nothing  to  do  with  his  own  deliverance. 

In  Zech.,  chaps.  9-14,  about  280  B.  c.,  the  situation  is  nearly  the  same. 
Yahweh  appears  in  battle  above  the  sons  of  Zion  and  his  arrows  go  forth 
like  lightning  in  defense  of  them.  He  sends  a  plague  upon  all  the  nations 
that  war  against  Jerusalem. 

While  there  is  not  exact  uniformity  of  view  as  to  the  date  of  all  these 
pieces,  it  is  recognized  that  they  reflect  the  hopes  and  expectations  of  the 
Jewish  people  from  the  time  of  the  captivity  down  to  the  early  part  of  the 
Greek  period  of  Old  Testament  history.  In  all  of  them  relief  comes  from 
the  raising-up  of  some  hero  outside  the  nation,  or  from  revolution  in  the 
world-powers,  or  from  the  miraculous  intervention  of  Yahweh  in  the 
affairs  of  men.  For  the  first  time  after  the  Babylonians  had  broken  up  the 
nation,  has  a  prophet  represented  the  people  as  fighting  their  own  battles 
and  gaining  their  own  victories.  No  place  within  four  hundred  years  after 
the  beginning  of  the  Babylonian  captivity  can  be  found  in  which  these  con- 
ditions are  satisfied.  This  brings  us  to  the  Maccabean  age. 

The  most  suitable  background  for  our  prophecy  is  the  victory  of  Judas 
over  Lysias  in  the  fall  of  165  B.  c.,  when  the  latter  came  up  from  the  south 
by  the  way  of  Idumea  and  suffered  a  crushing  defeat  at  the  hands  of  the 
Jewish  general  (Schuerer,  I,  i,  p.  216).  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
Edomites,  the  relentless  enemies  of  the  Jews,  took  part  in  this  war;  for  we 
find  Judas  soon  after  making  an  expedition  against  them.  The  repeated 
victories  of  Judas  would  prepare  the  people  as  well  as  the  prophet  for 
just  such  a  message  and  give  it  peculiar  force  at  that  time;  for  these  tri- 
umphs would  lead  them  to  expect  the  dawning  of  the  day  of  Yahweh  when 
all  their  enemies  were  to  perish.  The  prophet,  looking  back  upon  the 
terrible  persecution  and  slaughter  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes  five  years 
before,  which  united  in  suffering  the  people  of  his  own  generation  with  their 
ancestors  in  the  siege  of  Jerusalem  and  its  capture  by  the  Babylonians, 
would  expect,  in  view  of  the  present  victories,  a  speedy  fulfilment  of  the 
old  oracle  and  make  it  the  starting-point  for  his  own  words  of  comfort. 
By  this  time  the  apostate  Jews  would  be  in  hiding,  or  be  silenced.  That  is 
reason  enough  for  their  receiving  no  attention  in  this  brief  oracle. 

This  piece  possesses  no  great  literary  merit.  It  lacks  the  animation  of 
A,  and  the  regular  artistic  form  in  which  the  lines  of  B  appear  is  missing. 
The  metrical  scheme  is  irregular  with  lines  varying  from  trimeter  to  tetram- 
eter. It  may,  however,  including  vs.  i$bc  which  has  been  incorporated 
from  the  older  poem,  be  divided  into  two  well-defined  strophes  of  ten  lines 
each.  In  strophe  I  Israel  brings  utter  destruction  upon  his  old-time  enemy, 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF  -OBADIAH  21 

Edom;  in  strophe  II  he  gets  possession  of  his  former  territory.  The  day 
of  Yahweh  is  at  hand,  bringing  just  retribution  upon  the  Edomites  for 
their  sin;  for  God's  people  of  both  kingdoms  united,  like  flame  devouring 
the  stubble,  make  a  complete  end  of  their  enemies,  so  that  no  survivor 
is  left.  After  this  triumph  over  their  foes,  with  possessions  regained, 
they  ascend  Mount  Zion,  now  the  seat  of  the  united  kingdom's  capital,  to 
rule  over  the  territory  once  held  by  Edom,  and  Yahweh  is  king  over  all. 
At  the  beginning  of  each  strophe  the  general  statement  is  made,  while 
what  follows  gives  the  details.  The  text  has  suffered  in  transmission, 
now  containing  many  explanatory  glosses,  and  is  hopelessly  corrupt.  No 
one  knows  what  is  meant  by  "this  army,"  or  "this  fortress;"1  and  what 
or  where  Sepharad2  is,  every  scholar  is  free  to  guess,  and  has  been  since 
the  time  of  the  Septuagint  translation,  which  has  in  its  place  Ephratha. 

3itiiT  DT  nnp  ^  ^  i 

-]b  rrar  rrw 
[fffl&ni  siizr 

4ntrbs  rrnri  frs  vai  17* 
TDK  npy  m  rrm  is 
mnb  ?,OT  IYDI 
irpb  iw  mi 
DibDxi  nra  ipb-n 
rvab  TTB  rrrr  xbi 
mm  ^ 


arranta  n»  npr^  n^n  wn  17* 
snb£3irn  n^i  IJD  n«  ITDTI  19 


i  Hebrew,  HTH 

sD^ISH  bD  bT  makes  the  verse  too  long  and  may  be  from  the  hand  that  added 
vs.  16. 

4  Marti  and  J.  M.  P.  Smith  reject  TDHp  {"PHI  for  grammatical  reasons;  cf. 
Winckler.  It  may  have  been  added  from  Joel  4:17;  so  Marti. 

s  1t57  *in  fix  and  D^ntDbB  f"lX  are  with  Nowack  and  Marti  to  be  removed 
as  explanatory  glosses.  Negeb  and  Shephelah  cannot  be  subjects  of  the  verb,  so 
Ifljy  "^!l  n&$  and  Q^mijbD  nX  ,  each  with  the  sign  of  the  accusative,  are  seen  to  be 
explanations  of  the  preceding  words.  The  Negeb  was  in  possession  of  the  Edomites 
thus  belonging  to  Mount  Esau,  and  Hebron  was  an  Idumean  center  at  the  time  of 
the  Maccabean  struggles,  I  Mac.  4:29,  61;  5:65,  and  long  before,  cf.  Ezek. 
35:10-15;  36:5.  The  Philistines  held  the  Shephelah,  see  Zech.  9:6;  and  the 
Maccabean  wars  (Stade,  Geschichte,  Vol.  II,  pp.  368  ff.). 


22  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OB  ADI  AH 


nan  D^B»  rrra  nav 
JITH  bm  nbm  20 


»  •pat 
Dbirrr>  nbsi 


21 

in  na  tDBiob 
mrrb  nnm 

C.    ISRAEL'S  VICTORY  OVER  His  FOES  AND  RESTORATION  TO  His  LAND 

I 

For  near  is  the  day  of  Yahweh. 

(As  you  have  done,  so  shall  it  be  done  to  you; 

Your  dealing  shall  return  upon  your  own  head.) 

And  in  Mount  Zion  there  shall  be  an  escaped  remnant, 

And  the  house  of  Jacob  shall  become  a  fire, 

And  the  house  of  Joseph  a  flame, 

And  the  house  of  Esau  stubble, 

And  they  shall  burn  among  them  and  consume  them, 

So  that  there  will  be  no  survivor  to  the  house  of  Esau. 

For  Yahweh  hath  spoken  it. 

II 

And  the  house  of  Jacob  shall  regain  their  possessions; 
For  they  shall  possess  the  South  Land  and  the  Shephelah 
And  the  field  of  Ephraim  and  Gilead: 
And  the  captive  Israelites  of  this  army 
Shall  possess  the  land  of  Canaan  unto  Zarephath, 
And  the  captives  of  Jerusalem  which  are  in  Sepharad 
Shall  possess  the  cities  of  the  South  Land. 
And  they  shall  ascend  Mount  Zion  with  salvation 
To  judge  Mount  Esau; 
And  the  kingdom  shall  be  Yahweh's. 

1  TOT1"!  is  a  dittography  from  the  line  above,  to  be  rejected  for  the  sake  of  the  meter. 

a  Since  *p"Y5Q1ZJ  is  already  included  in  Ephraim,  and  "pE^Dn  apart  from  fPIl 
Spy  and  001"'  STQ  has  no  separate  existence,  "pE^SlI  ^TYQID  PHID  fltfl  must 
be  considered  as  no  part  of  the  original  text;  see  Marti,  who  has  followed  Nowack. 

3  Restore  TCH"1  which  has  dropped  out  because  of  its  likeness  to  the  following 
*V»X  .     Read  "ptf  for  ntDS  after  the  LXX  (Oort;    Kittel's  Hebrew  Bible).     As  the 
plural  of  the  gentilic  noun  "^DD  is  used  elsewhere  only  once  (Neh.  9  :  24)  and  then  with 
the  article,  in  apposition  with  "the  inhabitants  of  the  land,"  it  is  better  to  read 
after  Gen.  44:8;  46:31;  47:1,4,13,14,15;  50:5,  and  many  other  passages. 

4  With  the  ancient  Greek  versions  and  the  Syriac,  read  OUTDID  for 

After  the  Jews  have  destroyed  their  enemies,  they  have  no  need  of  "saviors;"    but 
"saved,"  that  is  as  "victors,"  they  ascend  Mount  Zion;  cf.  Zech.  9:6;   Ps.  33:  16. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OB  ADI  AH  23 

X.     VERSES  7^-9 

xCa 

mrr  DM 


naiani 
•pnr  •mis  3inm 
*ina  lira  rw  - 


(There  is  no  understanding  in  him.) 

In  that  day,  it  is  the  oracle  of  Yahweh, 

I  will  destroy  wise  men  from  Edom 

And  understanding  from  Mount  Esau; 

And  the  mighty  men  of  Teman  shall  be  dismayed, 

That  every  one  may  be  cut  off  from  Mount  Esau. 


Y 

vi  b?  DrvrnD  *n»«3  ^  16 


rni  vbiv 

For  as  ye  have  drunk  upon  my  holy  mountain, 

All  nations  shall  drink  continually; 

They  shall  drink  and  perish  and  be  as  if  they  had  not  been. 


1  yd,  IS  riDISlTI  "pfc$  has  every  appearance  of  being  a  marginal  comment  upon  the 
character  of  Edom,  because  through  lack  of  discernment  he  trusted  as  friends  and  allies 
the  enemies  who  have  brought  upon  him  sudden  and  unexpected  ruin. 

2  The  LXX  notices  neither  the  interrogative  negative  tflbn  ,   which  may  have 
come  from  vs.  5,  nor  the  1  consecutive,  translating  the  verb  as  a  simple  future.     !"fi  at 
the  beginning  of  Vn^Xnl  is  a  dittography  of  the  last  two  letters  of  STliT1  .     For  the 
form  rrPSK  compare  Jer.  46:8.   This  reading  of  the  LXX  is  much  simpler  than  that 
of  4H3I  and  in  every  way  preferable. 

3  Read  "mi3  for  T"fil3  with  KitteFs  Bible,  and  Marti  who  considers  the  ad- 
dress to  the  Edomite  country  Teman  thrown  in  between  vss.  8  and  gb  as  altogether  out  of 
place. 

4  For  the  reading  l^bll  see  appended  note  on  vs.  16. 


APPENDED  NOTES 

Vs.  7:  "YlTfl  is  a  troublesome  word  for  which  the  ancient  versions  give  various 
renderings.  The  BDB  Lexicon  derives  it  from  the  root  TPJ  and  offers  "net" 
as  a  probable  meaning.  Winckler  proposes  to  read  "T^J  for  "1*1732  and  for  the 
verb  of  the  iM®  ^TZP  rendering  "take  from  thee  thy  nourishment."  He  derives 
the  noun  from  the  root  T£ ,  Hithp.,  which  means  according  to  BDB  Lexicon 
"supply  self  with  provisions,"  Jos.  9:4  and  12.  But  if  such  noun  exists,  it  is 
found  here  only,  and  there  is  some  question  about  the  use  of  the  root  in  biblical 
Hebrew.  Furthermore,  after  the  proposed  changes  have  been  made,  can  the 
words  have  the  meaning  which  he  puts  upon  them  ?  Marti  objects  to  the  transla- 
tion "snare"  as  affording  no  suitable  meaning  here.  He  continues:  "They  lay 
snares  under  you;  but  Edom  has  already  been  driven  over  the  boundary."  He 
proposes  to  read  "fl^'J ,  or,  since  it  is  not  certain  that  ""fij/J  has  the  meaning 
"dwelling,"  better  1YT2  >  which  occurs  in  biblical  Aramaic  (Dan.  4:22,  29;  5 : 21), 
for  the  ^fiT/Q  of  the  fW®.  He  understands  the  clause  to  mean  "they  set  up  a 
habitation,"  or  "settle  in  thy  place,"  and  adds  the  comment  that  the  Arabs  after 
driving  out  the  Edomites  settle  in  the  land.  But  this  clause  with  its  verb  Y2^12Jh 
in  the  imperfect  does  not  necessarily  state  what  transpires  after  the  events  described 
in  the  preceding  clauses  of  the  verse,  but  may  give  attendant  circumstances. 
See  Haiti's  comment  on  Isa.  42:14  (Kurzer  Hand-Commentar)  and  Driver's 
Hebrew  Tenses,  §  163.  It  is  not  probable  that  the  Aramaic  ^flTO  was  the  original 
reading;  for  apart  from  the  late  gloss  bt3p?3  the  prophecy  is  entirely  free  from 
Aramaisms.  J.  A.  Selbie  suggests  that  the  "snare"  of  the  versions  may  be  due 
to  a  reading  *fi£7J  ,  that  is,"siege."  For  other  translations  and  proposed  emenda- 
tions see  BDB  Lexicon.  While  not  entirely  satisfactory,  nothing  better  than 
"net"  has  been  proposed. 

Vs.  12:  S"OD  *r*£  \cy6fju-vov  equals  ^03  in  Job  31:3,  from  a  root  furnishing 
words  in  the  other  Semitic  languages  with  a  number  of  different  meanings:  in 
Assyrian,  "rebel,"  "enemy;"  Arabic,  "evil,"  "change;"  Sabean,  "reject," 
"injure;"  Syriac,  "reject;"  Targum,  "strange,"  "foreign"  (BDB  Lexicon). 
As  a  result  there  are  several  interpretations  for  the  passage.  Rashi  understands 
"his  day"  to  be  the  day  when  he  is  delivered  into  the  hands  of  his  "enemies." 
With  Aben  Ezra  it  is  the  day  "strange"  in  his  eyes.  Some  think  of  the  "estrange- 
ment" of  the  people  from  their  land  by  driving  them  out  of  it  (Kimchi,  Mercer, 
Pusey);  or  of  God's  being  "estranged"  from  his  people  and  rejecting  them 
(Tarnovius,  Schnurrer,  Henderson).  The  LXX,  Syriac,  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia, 
and  Theodoret  translate  "day  of  foreigners"  (perhaps  reading  Q^I^O),  which 
according  to  Rosenmueller  means  when  "foreigners  invade  the  territory  of  the 
Israelites."  But  most  scholars  of  today  because  of  the  parallelism  have  rightly 
decided  for  the  meaning  "misfortune,"  "calamity."  Winckler  proposes  the 

24 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  25 

Niph'al  infinitive  construct  "irTOD ,  citing  the  parallel  infinitive  011^  at  the 
end  of  vs.  126  in  support  of  his  reading.  J.  M.  P.  Smith  follows  Winckler  because 
"HSD  is  &ro£  \ey6fjuevov  and  the  LXX  renders  the  last  word  of  the  variant  line 
(vs.  136)  by  6\e0pov  O.VT&V  and  this  is  the  only  occurrence  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment of  6\€0pos  as  an  equivalent  of  T&S ,  which  now  stands  in  the  M<&  of  vs.  136; 
but  6\Q0pe6w  is  the  rendering  for  ft^O  in  Judg.  6:25,  28,  30  and  Num.  4:18. 
Hence  the  LXX's  rendering  of  1"pfc$  in  vs.  136  and  the  *n^  of  vs.  i2a  point  to 
the  Niph'al  infinitive  1fY"03  as  the  original  reading. 

But  it  may  be  said  in  reply  that  the  Niph'al  infinitive  construct  of  fHlD  with 
suffix  is  not  *ltY"D3  ,  but  in"0?"l  which  does  not  resemble  1*03  quite  so  much 
as  the  form  proposed;  and,  while  dTrciXeta  which  occurs  nine  times  is  the  LXX's 
favorite  rendering  for  ^TJ^ ,  they  have  no  fewer  than  eight  other  translations,  all, 
however,  containing  the  idea  "destruction"  or  "disaster,"  for  this  same  word, 
although  it  is  found  only  twenty-four  times  in  iKQf;  so  it  is  not  strange  that 
they  should  in  rendering  a  passage  like  this,  for  the  sake  of  variation,  add  one 
more  synonym  6\e0pos  to  their  list.  There  does  not  seem  to  be  sufficient  reason 
for  setting  aside  1"OD  of  vs.  120  in  favor  of  IfHSfl .  1*03  ,  though  rare,  need 
give  no  serious  trouble;  for  words  from  the  same  root  are  common  enough  in 
the  Hebrew  Bible.  Even  if  their  meaning  is  limited  to  "foreign,"  which  seems 
to  suit  neither  our  passage  nor  Job  31 : 3,  it  is  but  a  step  from  "foreign,"  "strange" 
to  "adverse,"  "adversity"  or  "hostile,"  "hostility."  Compare  the  Greek 
dXX6rp€tos,  "strange,"  "hostile;"  the  Latin  hostis,  "stranger,"  "enemy;" 
alienus,  "foreign,"  "adverse,"  "hostile,"  "perilous."  "Calamity,"  the  defini- 
tion given  by  BDB,  comes  naturally  from  the  root  meaning  "strange,"  and 
makes  excellent  sense  both  in  Obad.,  vs.  12,  and  in  Job  31:3. 

Vs.  14:  p*)S  is  found  elsewhere  only  in  Nahum  3 :  i,  where  it  has  the  meaning 
"plunder  "which  is  not  suitable  here.  Although  Kimchi  in  his  commentary 
defines  it  "mother  of  ways,"  i.  e.,  "crossroads,"  and  in  the  Book  of  Roots  "heads 
of  ways,"  in  the  latter  he  seems  to  favor  a  different  interpretation;  for  he  explains 
by  *CnZJ ,  i.e.,  "breaking,"  "slaughter,"  and  compares  Lev.  19:16,  "Thou  shalt 
not  stand  against  the  blood  of  thy  neighbor."  The  LXX  and  the  Vulgate  were 
evidently  thinking  of  places  of  escape,  the  former  having  5te/c/3oX<£s,  i.  e.,  "pas- 
sages out,"  "exits"  (Sophocles,  Greek  Lexicon  sub  voce;  cf.  Diodorus  XVII,  68, 
and  Ezek.  48:30),  and  the  latter  exitibus:  they  have  been  followed  by  Winckler. 
The  thought  of  the  Syriac  seems  to  have  been  "a  place  of  refuge;"  for  its  trans- 
lation is  JAnnSn  which  Brockelmann  defines  by  cuniculus,  that  is  "burrow,"  and 
in  agreement  with  this  is  Happach's  "caves."  Henderson  sees  in  the  word  under 
consideration  a  "pass"  through  the  mountains,  while  Johannes  takes  it  in  a 
collective  sense  with  the  meaning  "those  who  break  through,"  "escape."  V"iS  , 
the  conjecture  of  Graetz,  is  no  improvement  on  ffl®.  All  of  these  are  to  be 
rejected  for  "parting  of  the  ways,"  "crossroads,"  which  has  been  accepted  by 
the  vast  majority  of  scholars  and  which  comes  naturally  from  the  meaning  of 
the  root  p*)B  "tear  apart,  away." 

Vs.  16:    IjbV     For  the  verbal  forms  in  Obad.,  vs.  16;    Job  6:3;    Prov. 


26  INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OB  ADI  AH 

20  :  25,  as  well  as  for  the  noun  3?b  ("  throat"),  Prov.  23  :  2,  the  BDB  Lexicon  posits 
two  roots  spelled  alike  (y*h  or  3?3?b)>  but  with  different  meanings:  (i)  "swallow," 
"swallow  down;"  (2)  "talk  wildly;"  but  Koenig  maintains  that  a  single  root 
is  sufficient  for  all  these  forms;  see  Lehrgebaude,  §34,  7,  b.  Wellhausen, 
Nowack,  G.  A.  Smith,  Marti,  and  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  in  view  of  such  passages  as 
Isa.  24:20;  29:9;  Ps.  107:27,  read  *\y?\  instead  of  ^bl  •  This  verb  then 
states  the  result  of  the  drinking.  They  shall  "stagger"  or  "reel"  and  come  to 
naught.  Gressmann,  Der  Ursprung  der  Israelitisch-Juedischen  Eschatologie, 

p.  132,  reads  ib^l  ,  transposing  the  letters,  and  compares  the  Arabic  JLC.  .  His 
translation  of  i6b  runs:  werden  alle  Voelker  bestaendig  trinken,  trinken  und  wieder 
trinken,  und  sein,  ah  waeren  sie  nie  gewesen.  See  Lane's  Arabic  Lexicon  sub 
voce:  "drink  again  after  drinking,  uninterruptedly."  This  gives  a  good  meaning 
without  making  any  radical  change  in  the  IH®,  but  does  not  account  for  the 
ancient  versions.  In  place  of  the  word  under  consideration  the  LXX1  have 
"they  shall  go  down;"  the  Vulgate2  and  Arabic3  both  render  "shall  swallow 
down;"  the  Syriac4  uses  two  verbs  to  translate  this  one,  "shall  wonder  and  be 
excited,"  while  the  Targum5  has  "shall  be  destroyed."  All  these  versions  point 
to  the  reading  I3?bnl  •  The  translators  of  the  Vulgate  and  the  Arabic  pointed 
the  verb  as  a  Qal  or  Piel,  and  the  other  three  versions  came  from  reading  it  as  a 
Pual.  For  the  LXX  compare  /carajSafrw,  used  absolutely  and  pregnantly  for 
"going  down  to  Hades"  in  Isa.  5:14;  Ezek.  32:21,  30,  and  Karapdaiov,  "a  way 
down,"  especially  to  the  nether  world  (Liddell  and  Scott's  Greek  Lexicon  sub 
voce).  Hermes,  the  god  who  led  souls  down  to  the  nether  world,  was  called 
by  the  Rhodians  and  Athenians  /carai/Sdr^s,  poetic  for  /cara/Sdrr/s  (Scholiast 
on  The  Peace  of  Aristophanes,  1.  650).  3?bD  with  its  various  meanings,  "swallow 
down,"  "confound,"  "destroy,"  furnishes  sufficient  explanation  for  the  render- 
ings of  all  these  ancient  versions.  So  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  reading  of 
IK®  arose  from  the  dropping  by  some  copyist  of  3  from  *$b^  . 

For  a  very  ingenious  and  at  the  same  time  exceedingly  improbable  solution 
of  some  of  the  problems  connected  with  this  verse  see  Critical  Notes  by  Julius 
A.  Bewer  in  Old  Testament  and  Semitic  Studies  in  Memory  of  William  Rainey 
Harper,  Vol.  II,  pp.  207-10.  To  account  for  the  two  Hebrew  readings,  T52)n 
and  n**30  »  and  the  Greek  oivov,  he  thinks  that  originally  the  text  at  the  end  of 
the  first  half  of  the  verse  ran:  *H^J2C5n&W13n  ;  that  a  copyist  accidentally 

D 
K  ID 

omitted  DSflK  and  afterward  wrote  it  in  thus:  '^TWllTWl  or  ^TEnDh1j»"I  • 

D  K 

0 

Then  he  was  followed  by  two  others,  one  of  whom  ignored  the  letters  out  of  line 


2  et  absorbebunt. 


INTRODUCTION   TO   STUDY   OF   OBADIAH  27 

and  the  *»  at  the  end;  the  other  dropped  T^t"!  reading  the  letters  up,  or  down 
as  the  case  may  be,  and  mistaking  ^  for  ^ ,  with  fcOO  as  a  result.  Finally  this 
last  copyist's  work  fell  into  the  hands  of  one  who  read  3"*ISO  f°r  5OD  •  In  addition 
to  all  the  other  improbabilities  we  must  suppose  according  to  this  theory  that  the 
copyist  responsible  for  the  first  change  in  the  text  conveniently  left  space  sufficient 
for  the  insertion  of  a  letter  at  just  the  right  point  in  the  line,  and  that  his  lines  were 
far  enough  apart  for  two  letters  between  them,  one  above  the  other.  Every 
position  taken  is  assumption  pure  and  simple;  for  he  has  cited  no  parallels, 
nor  has  he  produced  any  other  proof.  The  Greek  olvov  is  easily  explained  by 
supposing  the  reading  "T2)l  f°r  T32I"I ;  and  Sh!HO  may  be  from  the  hand  of  some 
Hebrew  who  substituted  it  for  *TCf"l  and  as  an  interpretation  of  it.  In 
harmony  with  this  idea  is  Caspari's  comment  on  T^fl ,  who  thinks  of  all  the 
nations  drinking  in  turn  one  after  the  other  until  they  perish.  He  says,  "  TSU 
cannot  be  taken  strictly;  it  can  only  mean  a  long  time  which  ceases  when  all  the 
nations  have  been  destroyed."  Hitzig's  interpretation  is,  "Continually,  so  that 
the  turn  never  comes  from  the  nations  to  the  Jews  (Isa.  51:22  f.),  as  what 
immediately  follows  shows,  even  to  their  destruction."  So  the  thought  of  the 
writer  of  S*QO  may  have  been  that  the  nations  drink  all  around  so  that  none  of 
them  escape. 


LITERATURE 

Some  of  the  more  recent  and  important  special  works  on  Obadiah  are:  C.  P. 
Caspari,  Der  Prophet  Obadja  ausgelegt,  1842;  F.  Delitzsch,  Wann  weissagte 
Obadja?  (Rudelbach  und  Guericke,  Zeitschrift,  1851,  pp.  91  ff.);  C.  A.  W. 
Sey del,  Der  Prophet  Obadja,  1869;  Peters,  Die  Prophetic  Obadjas,  1892;  Winckler, 
Altorientalische  Forschungen,  Zweite  Reihe,  Band  III  (1900),  pp.  425-57;  A. 
Condamin,  "L' unite  d'Abdias,"  Revue  biblique,  Vol.  IX  (1900);  J.  A.  Selbie, 
"Obadiah,"  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible;  T.  K.  Cheyne,  "Obadiah"  in 
Encyclopaedia  Biblica;  J.  M.  P.  Smith,  "The  Structure  of  Obadiah"  in  The 
American  Journal  of  Semitic  Languages  and  Literatures,  Vol.  XXII,  No.  2, 
January,  1906;  Sievers,  "Alttestamentliche  Miscellen,"  in  Berichte  ueber  die 
Verhandlungen  der  Koeniglich-Saechsischen  Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschaften  zu 
Leipzig:  Philologisch-historische  Klasse,  Band  29  (1907);  and  for  the  late  date 
of  the  parallel  passage  in  Jer.,  chap.  49,  see  Schwally,  ZATW  (1888),  pp.  177  ff., 
and  Schmidt,  "Jeremiah"  (Book)  in  Encyclopaedia  Biblica. 

For  Commentaries,  Introductions,  and  other  works  of  reference  on  the  Twelve 
Minor  Prophets  see  Harper's  "Amos  and  Hosea"  in  The  International  Critical 
Commentary ',  where  everything  worth  consulting,  up  to  the  time  of  its  publication, 
may  be  found. 


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VITA 

I,  George  A.  Peckham,  was  born  in  Middlebury,  now  a  part  of  Akron, 
"Summit  County,  Ohio,  July  17,  1851.  I  prepared  for  college  in  the  Akron 
High  School,  in  the  Preparatory  Department  of  Hiram  College,  and  in 
Bethany  College,  and  in  the  fall  of  1872  entered  Buchtel  College,  Akron, 
Ohio,  graduating  in  the  class  of  1875  with  the  degree  of  A.B.  For  two 
years  I  was  instructor  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  Mathematics  in  my  alma 
mater.  In  the  fall  of  1877  I  was  ordained  to  the  ministry  and  served  as 
pastor  at  Granger,  Ohio,  for  one  year,  when  I  was  elected  to  the  professor- 
ship of  Greek  and  Latin  in  Buchtel  College.  After  holding  this  position 
for  two  years,  I  received  a  call  to  Hiram  College,  and  since  that  time  have 
held  a  professorship  in  the  Ancient  Language  Department  of  this  institution, 
at  first  the  chair  of  Greek  and  Latin,  later  that  of  Biblical  Languages,  and 
since  1900  that  of  Old  Testament  Languages  and  Literature. 

At  the  suggestion  of  President  Harper  that  I  do  some  university  work 
I  entered  the  University  of  Chicago  as  a  student  in  the  summer  of  1 900,  and 
for  three  full  summer  quarters  pursued  Semitic  study,  taking  work  under 
President  W.  R.  Harper,  Professors  R.  F.  Harper,  Ira  M.  Price,  H.  L. 
Willett,  and  John  M.  P.  Smith,  and  I  gratefully  acknowledge  my  indebted- 
ness to  them  all.  I  feel  that  I  owe  much  to  President  William  R.  Harper, 
a  man  of  genuine  piety,  a  thorough  scholar,  an  inspiring  teacher,  and  a 
commanding  personality.  I  am  especially  indebted  to  Professor  R.  F. 
Harper  for  many  hours  of  private  instruction  in  Assyrian  and  incidentally 
in  comparative  grammar  of  the  Semitic  Languages.  I  am  also  under  special 
obligation  to  Professor  J.  M.  P.  Smith  who  has  furnished  me  with  books 
and  has  been  my  counselor  in  the  preparation  of  this  thesis.  He  is  in  no 
way  to  be  held  responsible,  however,  for  the  positions  here  taken  nor  for  the 
conclusions  reached. 


29 


